


Out of Time

by pterawaters



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers Endgame Spoilers, Fix-It, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-15 20:39:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18677014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pterawaters/pseuds/pterawaters
Summary: Steve noticed that he and Carol Danvers had something in common. Neither one of them had aged since gaining their power.





	Out of Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [osointricate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/osointricate/gifts).



> I figured out part of what bothered me about the ending of Avengers:Endgame. I hadn’t expected Steve to be capable of aging. Have a ficlet reflecting that assumption.

 “You were born in the sixties?” Steve asked Carol, handing her a plate of whatever it was that Pepper had delivered while they were waiting for Tony to wake up.

“Yeah.” Carol took the plate with a nod of gratitude.

“And you’ve never been put in suspended animation?”

Carol raised an eyebrow as she brought a bite of food to her mouth. She shook her head as she chewed, eventually saying, “Not that I know of.”

“You haven’t aged.”

With a smirk, she told him, “You’re the first person on Earth who’s noticed.” She leaned closer and said in a conspiratorial tone that reminded Steve of Peggy, “I’m not big on my world war history, but I hear you were born in the twenties.” She lifted both her eyebrows and leaned back, taking another bite. “You’re almost a centenarian.”

“I spent sixty-five years on ice. Literally.” He picked at his food.

“Maybe it’s just the baby face since you shaved,” she told him, “but you don’t look a day over twenty-five.”

Forcing himself to twirl a few noodles onto his fork, Steve muttered, “I don’t think I _am_.”

A few more bites in, Carole said, “I had this doctor a few years back, on Xandar, who told me that when my body absorbed all the radiation that gave me my powers, it super-charged my cells. I mean, she used bigger words than that, but I’m translating.”

“Thank you,” Steve said, dryly.

“Anyway, she thought I wasn’t aging because my cells have enhanced healing abilities. I might live thousands of years.”

Steve looked down at his hands, remembering the blinding light of the Vita-Radiation that made Erskine’s serum work. He couldn’t remember a time it took longer than 48 hours to heal an injury. “Thousands, huh?”

When he looked up, Carol nodded excitedly. “Amazing, right?”

She seemed so young.

~*~

Five years on from that conversation, Steve still didn’t notice any aging. Rhodey had more gray in his hair. Nat had a few more lines on her forehead. Bruce didn’t count because he was green.

Everyone was moving forward, growing older. Everyone except Steve.

So when all was said and done, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t stay there, in one place, stagnant, and watch his friends grow old without him. It was hard enough watching Peggy get old and die.

But God help him, he didn’t want her laying in her deathbed to be his last memory of her. He went to Peggy first on his trip through time to return the stones. He caught her alone, and he had his dance. Maybe it was selfish to visit her only to erase her memory using Loki’s staff afterward, but he couldn’t let his visit erase the life she had lived in his absence. Not and live with himself for the next few millennia.

On his last jump, Steve undershot his arrival time by twelve hours. He opened his phone and called the only solution he could think of. “Hey, I could use a ride.”

“Where to?” Carol asked, landing beside him like she hadn’t just been several miles away, and asleep.

Steve looked up at the night sky and pointed. “Back out there,” he said. “I’m done standing still. It’s time to move on.”

Carol smiled, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s find you a ship!”


End file.
